Cynthia and I just spent five days in a cabin up near Mount Hood. We took this time to relax, reflect, and read. We even had our own church service Sunday morning, including communion!
I read Shane Claiborne’s “Irresistible Revolution” and Brennan Manning’s “Ruthless Trust.” Claiborne calls us back to what following Christ really looks like, and Manning to what trusting God really looks like. That’s a powerful one-two punch!
I learned from Claiborne that our faith is to be like a mustard seed (sounds familiar, right?), but he pointed out that mustard plants grow and spread like weeds, sprouting up all over the place.
Our calling is very much a personal one, planting little seeds all over the place through love and service, with faith springing up all over the place too, not simply where we have built some church buildings.
From Manning I learned that faith plus hope equals trust. My paraphrase in the margin was ‘faith that God can do it plus hope that He will do it equals trust that it will be done according to His promises.” I think we get so caught up in what we want that we lose hope, because we’re hoping for the wrong thing!
I came away from this week wanting to know God more, rather than know more about God. I want to know Jesus more, not more about Jesus. That requires spending more time with Him and following in His footsteps, not merely being a fan with all the history memorized and pictures on the wall (I do have lots of Jesus pictures though).
So five days in a cabin; plenty of naps, games, hiking, reading, praying. End result. Trust God. Stop fussing. Follow Jesus, really follow Him and the patterns He set for us. Do what we can in each moment to plant seeds, and trust God that a little bit of love here and there will spread like weeds and fuel a revolution!
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